Newsflash: The U.S.-South Korea Military Alliance Isn't Working

Doug Bandow

Security, Asia

South Koreans should "understand that the cheap ride is over and the American cavalry won’t be riding to their rescue."

As South and North Korea exchanged artillery fire in late August, the United States rushed three B-2 bombers to Guam. The Obama administration hoped to deter the North from taking military action, but the bigger question is: Why is Seoul still a helpless dependent sixty-two years after the Korean War ended?

Imagine a hostile relationship existing between the United States and Mexico, worse even than if Donald Trump is elected president. The Mexicans pour their limited economic resources into their military and threaten America with war. Washington officials respond by begging Europe and Japan to send military aid.

The Americans would face raucous laughter. After all, the United States has more than two and a half times Mexico’s population. America’s GDP is an even more impressive at fourteen times that of Mexico. Europe and Japan would tell Washington to act like the government of a serious nation and raise the military necessary to protect its people.

Yet the disparity between South Korea (ROK) and North Korea (DPRK) is even larger. The South enjoys a population edge of two-to-one and an economic advantage upwards of forty-to-one. Seoul has stolen away the North’s chief military allies, China and Russia, which would no longer fight for the DPRK. On every measure of national power, save military, South Korea dominates. And it lags on the latter only out of choice.

Indeed, the South has even surrendered control of its armed forces to the United States. Wartime operational control, or OPCON, goes to the American military. Decades have gone by, but the South Koreans say they still aren’t ready to manage their own troops. Some officials candidly admit that they fear taking control might encourage Washington to bring home its forces. Thus, dependence has become a strategy to ensure a continued place on America’s defense dole.

It’s obvious why Seoul takes this approach. Feigning helplessness can be embarrassing, even humiliating. ROK officials occasionally resent American meddling in their defense decisions, including in how to respond to Pyongyang’s ubiquitous provocations. Many South Koreans dislike the inevitable social impact of so many U.S. troops.

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